1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ITE (in the ear) hearing aid for binaural hearing assistance to a patient, of the type having a housing and an antenna device that has a preferred direction of transmission.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the case of ITE hearing aids, there is the fundamental problem that only little installation space is available. Therefore, the components that are necessary in ITE hearing aids have to be made as small as possible and/or reduced in number to a minimum.
With binaural hearing assistance, there is also the requirement that the two hearing aids must be made to match each other in their settings. If the ITE hearing aids have arrangements that set themselves automatically to specific hearing situations, the setting of the two hearing aids should take place in such a way that they are made to match.
A hearing aid system with two hearing aids is known from the document German OS 100 48 354, The hearing aids are connected by a bidirectional, wireless signal path. A binaural hearing aid system in which two hearing aids are connected bidirectionally and wirelessly to each other is also known from the patent specification U.S. Pat. No. 6,549,633.
Furthermore, a space-saving antenna arrangement for hearing aid devices is disclosed in the document German OS 102 36 940. In this case, an antenna coil is wound onto the earphone or onto the microphone.